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This AP report says the American Psychological Association voted down a measure that would have prohibited members from assisting "interrogators." Intead the group voted for a resolution restricting the manner in which members participated in interrogations.

US Psychologists Scrap Interrogation Ban

Date Published:

Aug 20, 2007 03:00 AM

Author:
Sudhin Thanawala

Source:
The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO -- The nation's largest group of psychologists scrapped a
measure Sunday that would have prohibited members from assisting
interrogators at Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. military detention
centers.

The American Psychological Association's policy-making council voted
against a proposal to ban psychologists from taking part in any
interrogations at U.S. military prisons "in which detainees are
deprived of adequate protection of their human rights."

Instead, the group approved a resolution that reaffirmed the
association's opposition to torture and restricted members from taking
part in interrogations that involved any of more than a dozen specific
practices, including sleep deprivation and forced nakedness. Violators
could be expelled and lose their state licenses to practice.

Critics of the proposed ban who spoke before the vote at the
148,000-member organization's annual meeting said the presence of
psychologists would help insure interrogators did not abuse prisoners.

"If we remove psychologists from these facilities, people are going to
die," said Army Col. Larry James, who serves as a psychologist at
Guantanamo Bay.

Supporters argued that psychologists should not be working at detention
centers where prisoners are detained indefinitely without being charged.

"If psychologists have to be there so detainees don't get killed, those
conditions are so horrendous that the only moral and ethical thing is
to leave," said Laurie Wagner, a psychologist from Dallas.

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